


Swinging at Gatsby's

by cumberbellins



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - 1920s, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M, Party, Shy Castiel, Swing Dancing, The Great Gatsby AU, but it didn't, could have turned into pwp, dean is basically a pornstar on the dancefloor, ha, haha - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-28
Updated: 2014-07-28
Packaged: 2018-02-10 20:17:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2038680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cumberbellins/pseuds/cumberbellins
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1920s The Great Gatsby AU - Castiel sat on his porch with a book on his lap and listened to the voices and the engines racing on the asphalt. Some people waved at him, some even pulled their cars to a stop and invited him to join them, but he always politely refused. He sat outside and looked from afar at the glorious pinks and blues and greens covering the walls of the Gatsby domain, at the dancers painted in gold and the ladies with pink feathers around their hips running into the ocean, followed by men who'd lost their shirts and their hats, and he imagined what marvels where hidden within the tall walls.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Swinging at Gatsby's

**Author's Note:**

> This has been sleeping in a dark corner of my computer for what feels like months, I finally decided to end it properly.  
> I started writing it right after I finished watching The Great Gatsby, electro-swing was pumping through my veins, you know, I just had to write it.  
> If I may, you should listen to swing while reading it, I suggest you start with this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWZuvvCq4bY) before reading to get in the right mood, and then play this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mU-s7gYlK2w) or a Parov Stelar album throughout the fic.  
> Enjoy :) !

Every week, a party was held not far from where Castiel lived. He knew little about it, he preferred to avoid the great gatherings that took place in the preposterously huge palace, in favor of enjoying the calm atmosphere of the ocean that layed at its side, unwavering and so comforting. He watched the cars of every color drive past his modest home to the music that was playing, morning, noon and night, in his neighboor's mansion. The ladies wore shining dresses and held their headbands on their heads to protect their hair from the wind, they chattered and laughed with bright white teeth that were highlighted by their red lipstic. The men wore waistcoats and bowties and drove like they were late for their entry into Heaven.

Castiel sat on his porch with a book on his lap and listened to the voices and the engines racing on the asphalt. Some people waved at him, some even pulled their cars to a stop and invited him to join them, but he always politely refused. The rush and all the glitter that seemed to surround the whole process was fascinating, but he couldn't picture himself in the middle of so many bodies, incapable to speak, let alone dance. The privacy of his home suited him much better. So, every weekend, he opened his front door and let the sound of laughter and swing inside his home. He went outside and looked from afar at the glorious pinks and blues and greens covering the walls of the Gatsby domain, at the dancers painted in gold and the ladies with pink feathers around their hips running into the ocean, followed by men who'd lost their shirts and their hats, and he imagined what marvels where hidden within the tall walls.

He'd never even considered walking up to the estate himself, until one day, his brother, who was visiting him for the first time in years, insisted they at least went to see what was beyond the trees that were protecting the Gatsby palace. Gabriel had always been a festive man. He had dragged Castiel to several parties in their youth, always urging him to try on more fancy clothes, more expensive hats, and to drink more colorful beverages. He couldn't resist neither women nor cocktails, and tended to abuse of both. The fruiter the better. Castiel knew his small and retired house was hardly the paradise it inspired him in his brother's eyes, which were so avid of everything that shone and sang jazzy songs. He understood the appeal the constant festivity of life that emanated from the neighboring house, he even felt it himself, if not strongly enough to overcome the shyness he was born with. And so, when Gabriel promised him he wouldn't leave him on his own, nor force him into drinking nor conversation, he agreed to honor the crowds with his company for one night.

He wore the silky dark blue shirt his brother had brought him from the city, black pants, a black waistcoat, of which the back was made of light grey satin, a black bowtie, and the only pair of shining black shoes he owned. He hadn't decided whether he was feeling over or underdressed yet. Gabriel, with his dark red shirt, white suit and golden tie, looked like a devil. His naturally seductive resting expression brought the demonic charm to the part.

They had first been planning to go on foot, but they weren't a hundred feet from Castiel's house when a vivid blue car stopped for them and they were pulled by women's hands inside the vehicle. A dark-haired lady with big blue eyes underlined by green and orange pulled Gabriel's tie out of his vest and her black nails played with it. Castiel sat next to a young girl with a short blond hair and well-defined cheekbones who smiled at him with lips made of cherry. She complimented the choice of his shirt, it brought out his beautiful eyes, she said.

The driver was trying to entertain conversation with his brother, and it worried him, how his eyes were so rarely on the road. He watched the flying dust around them, the cloud of fine powder he always observed from his porch when the cars arrived racing. It was new, witnessing this display of youth and exuberance from within. He saw with fresh eyes the dark-skined women in red dresses and golden jewellery, the multicolored feathers of the birds magicians carried with them, and the shining instruments of the musicians. Everything was glory, everything was of exotic beauty.

Soon, the music became louder and he could glimpse an electric blue pool behind the green leaves of the tall trees. The wheels of the car fought against gravel and he could see men holding women's hands to help them out of the cars, tall and slender silouhettes covered in green silk and white fur. He worried about his clothes when he saw all men were wearing orange or light blue; he looked like he was heading to a funeral. The woman sitting next to him saw the look of faint panic on his face and laid a soft pale hand on his shoulder. He had nothing to worry about, she said. He thanked her politely and tried to contain his anxiety, her name was Daisy, she was beautiful, lively.

The car pulled to a stop and Castiel beheld the palace he had dreamt about every week of the year for the past five years. Everything he'd imagined, and everything he could have imagined for the rest of his life, couldn't even come close to the grandiose madness he now gazed upon. The main building was too large to be seen entirely from any angle other than from above, and then you couldn't have counted the four ranges of windows on which rested branches of ivy and white roses. Purple and yellow flowers climbed up the stairs of stone that went from the swimming pool to the terrace of marble that led to the main entrance. The sides of the house were hidden by bushes and fountains. Empty, this garden would have been a sheer Heaven. Crowded with people in incredible apparels, it was the perfect reflection of an alternate universe, where scarlet and replaced gray, and everything that was still black glistened. Music turned bodies into waves and blood was becoming fizzy in all pounding arteries.

Even Gabriel's eyes were wide, attempting to take it all in but noticing something new everytime he tried to focus on a color. Castiel lost all vigilance of all the strangers that brushed his shoulders, rushing to see the cancan dancers like madmen. Everyone seemed to lose their identity when the got out of their car. The terribly poor and the indecently rich embraced in furious waltzes and tangos, not caring about the rhythm of the songs. Women led men and some led other women, ribbons were scattered on the floor. Magnificent chaos, it was.

He turned to his brother to comment on it, but Gabriel was already making a woman twirl. Of course he was. Castiel tried to go unnoticed and succeeded, it was one of his most impressive talents. He sat down on a bench and let his eyes marvel at the spectacle. Everything went too fast, and it was too dark to see clearly. Every second was a new painting, a beauty too ephemeral to remember and too easily replaced to be regreted. The dresses were violent splashes of color that disappeared as soon as they reached the canvas, the light of the moon reflected on every shining surface, on shoes and earings and the water in the pool. This, this was a different reality. The moment the car had reached the gravel, Castiel had been thrown into another universe. This was magic. He smiled when he realised he was glad to be here, to have seen this tiny little part of the world that had always frightened him in a way, and that was a whole infinity on its own, just a smaller one.

And that's when he saw him. He was in a dark blue suit with black lapels. He'd probably been wearing a bowtie at some point, but the top buttons of his white shirt were now undone. His skin was golden. Not like the dancers that had been painted for the occasions, his skin was just tan, and against the bright white of his shirt that caught the moonlight, it was a burning Sun. His hair seemed to be made of gold threads. Everything around him, the red, the green, even the glitter, it was all vapid, it was all fading. He was glowing and he was obliterating everything around him. Castiel couldn't see anything other than him, couldn't hear the music anymore. There were no smells of roses nor tropical fragrances, he didn't even feel the bench he was sitting on supporting his weight. He felt like he was falling, only their was no ground waiting for him. It was an endless void. He felt light, he felt so, so very light, so light he could fly. His eyes were offering both his body and soul to the man and he was consuming everything, without even knowing. He felt his heart knocking on his ribcage, trying to get him thinking again, grasping consciousness and sanity tightly because his mind no longer could. He'd read about the feeling, wondering until he fell asleep if any of this could be true, if you could really recognise someone you'd never even seen and just _know_. And he knew. Every organ felt as if it had been ripped out of his chest and he could no longer see or think straight, but he knew.

Suddenly, for barely long enough to be called a second, the man's eyes found his. It was over before Castiel knew it had begun, but some part of him had registered the information and all of his organs were being shoved back in. Suddenly, Castiel could see and hear and smell and feel and it was all too much. The saxophone was deafening and the dim light of the moon was blinding him and the smell of roses and champagne and bodies was flooding his brain and he felt dizzy, but his eyes wouldn't leave the blue suit. It was moving, it was dancing with a silver dress. Its movements were fluid and so rapid Castiel had to focus to follow them, and they sent the silver skirt swirling around the slender woman's body. It was majestic. He tried to look at the woman hiding underneath the dress but he couldn't tear his eyes from the man. His arms were strong around her waist and his smile was a neverending source of light, and even from that distance his lips were pink. His beauty was an offense to the Gods and he was enjoying it, he was mocking them. The woman in his arms wasn't dancing, she was letting him play her, she was an instrument, he had power over her and she would do as he dictated.

That was how Castiel wasn't jealous. She wasn't a partner, she was an extension of the man's body. He couldn't have replaced her, because he had no sense of rhythm and he wasn't gracious, and it enraged him, but he wasn't jealous. He was sad, and admirative. It was a bit like listening to a beautiful and melancholic piece played by a great musician. It provoked a profound sadness in him but he felt himself smile, and part of it was because he didn't know why.

He was probably staring harder than he'd realised, because the man looked back at him one more time and smiled. Castiel wasn't even sure he could call him beautiful. Beautiful was for primroses in winter and Bach's sonatas. Behind this stranger's gaze burned flames of colors that hadn't ever existed before, pink blues and yellow purples, bright asphalt and dark ivory; there were no words for them, just an abstract idea that was floating in Castiel's mind, too rapid for him to be able to grasp it and look at it clearly, smoke in his fingers.

The man let go of the woman he was holding and danced, partly on his own, parly with the group of people that were surrounding him and trying to follow his moves. Failing, for the majority of them. He was just too quick, too unpredictable, too gracious. He was just too much. His hips stuck to the beat, swinging forwards and backwards with every pulse, and his legs swiftly surrendered to the movement, his feet making regular steps over and over. His arms circled other bodies, a new dress every second, and sometimes a suit. When he offered someone his hand, they seemed to be sucked into his spiral of beauty and energy, his light invaded them, shining throught every pore, and they could join him in his satanic flamenco. But as soon as the contact was broken, as soon as his golden skin left theirs, the light escaped them, their bodies fell off the rhythm, the magic was gone.

Their eyes met again, and this time something went off inside both their bodies. Castiel had felt the fire spreading on his skin from the very first look, but this time, he also saw the flames that had lightened up in the other man's eyes. He couldn't even tell which color they were from where he was, but the heat in them was unmistakable, and burning everything that crossed the path of their gaze. From then on, the stranger kept dancing, half-heartedly leading a gorgeous sequined silky black dress around the blue pool in rapid twirls, but his eyes kept searching for his, his head focusing on compensating for the angle of his body, and Castiel almost felt sorry for the woman gripping his neck, desperately trying to force him to concentrate on her by angling his jaw with her black thumbs. Castiel could understand, obviously. He couldn't even want those thumbs off him, the dark chocolate was beautiful on the orange sunset of his skin. He couldn't want for the dance to stop, the now lukewarm movements he was making were languid, he was melting and forming again every second, pulling the woman into the endless circle with him. It was every kind of beauty at once.

So for a while, they stayed like this. Castiel sat on the stone bench, with his eyes wide open, hands in his lap, absorbing as much of the scene as he could and tucking it all away safely in a white room in his mind he'd just found the key to; the other man, in a cold feaver, danced and danced, professing his love to the Lord of the night, hanging on to Castiel's eyes with the uncertain look of a crestfallen conqueror; the both of them perfectly unable to disrupt the magical folly they were witnessing, unsure of its meaning, but and yet abandoning themselves to it. It was the best Castiel had ever felt, and yet he'd never been so frustrated. He could feel the pull of the other man's body and soul, how easy it would be for him to snap and surrender to the urge to cross the floor and go to him, but resisting it was like submitting to a soothing hypnosis.

All of a sudden, the man let go. His eyes were on Castiel, and his fingers relaxed their grip around a satin dress, to let it float away from him. He wasn't dancing anymore.

The pull was no longer magnetic, it was gravitational. But, no matter how strong Castiel felt his own body trying to haul him to it by the sheer power of will, regardless of the attraction that got every single one of his cells yelling, begging to be joined with this man he had never met, they weren't moving. Not an inch, not even a breath. And the swing music kept pouding and pounding, people dancing and throwing themselves into the ocean.

Then the man started walking. He slithered his way through the crowd easily, as smoothly as a snake. His eyes didn't leave Castiel's, but it was as if he could anticipate every abrupt movement around him and adapt to it in an elegant dodge. Castiel could hear his heartbeat fighting against the rhythm of the music. Too soon and not soon enough, the man was standing right before him, and if Castiel extended his arm, he could have felt the shape of his stomach by sliding his palm along the soft white shirt. He could have touched the man's hand, his golden skin. He could even have gotten on his feet to be tall enough to reach his dark blond hair. From that distance, he could see green eyes, with more gold inside them. He could see freckles covering the man's face, his throat, and disappearing under his shirt, almost challenging him to imagine what other places they had invaded. He could see a thin coating of sweat, which was probably responsible for the way his whole body seemed to glow.

He looked into the infinite green eyes, and he saw all the majesty, all the undeniable power the man had displayed earlier. He barely missed the way the arm unfurled towards him, offering a hand. He looked at the skin on that hand. It was dry and rough, used to different fabrics brushing them, completely different from Castiel's own fingers, his pink skin that regularly suffered from papercuts when he turned the pages of words he lived in.

The man's already radiant smile grew wider as Castiel watched his hand with hesitation. He was trying to convince himself he could see the blood pumping underneath the epidermis when the motioned him to just take the hand, or rather surrender his own. So he did. He slid his palm in the man's grip, and let himself be pulled up. He was so warm, a Sun in the cool night air. Now that they were at the same level, he realized the man was slightly taller than him, a few inches at most, but still enough for Castiel to have to look up at him. Of course he would.

The sudden proximity was alarming. All the details Castiel now had access to were overwhelming. He could count the creases on the man's lips, the lashes that circled his eyes, he could watch as dimples followed the curve of his smile, and the light revealed the shape of his skull. It was all too much, and yet he can't be satiated, he knew there was so much more, he only had a few square inches of skin and there were so many left.

The hand is pulling him to the middle of the crowd, he is being pulled among strangers, and soon the only one he has noticed turns around to face him again, and he can feel a second hand sliding on the small of his back, and slowly pulling him closer, giving him time to adjust, but not asking for permission. Their hands, the ones that are intertwined, are brought up, and some instinct in Castiel places his free hand on the man's shoulder. He vaguely recognizes their posture as a dancing one, though which one he is not sure. It doesn't seem to matter; it certainely doesn't to him. He doesn't know how to dance, any dance at all.

Without warning, the man tries to move, taking a step back, and then forwards again, but Castiel has no idea how to follow, and his own steps are hazardous and graceless. The man stops moving, and for a moment Castiel thinks he's going to let go, so he clenches his hand around the one he is holding. The man looks at it with surprised eyes, and back at Castiel with quirked eyebrows, to which he cannot respond. Instead, he forces his fingers to relax and tries to look down, apologetic. If his cheeks are burning, he is pretty sure they will go unnoticed among the shameless reds that surround them. But he isn't being pushed away, he's being pulled closer still, until his chest collapses against white silk, and hipbones meet. His eyes have no choice but to dive into an endless pool of green, and he knows they are wide and of an almost electric blue because he's been told about how he looks when things happen unexpectedly.

He has a choice: he can accept the man's exhales as his only source of air, or he can suffocate to death, and that idea seems to please his predator, who reveals bright teeth with a euphoric, yet controlled smile. Should Castiel move in any direction, the most probable outcome would be that their noses would be touching. Any attempt to escape would be a miserable failure. The man's head shifts to the side and his lips come to rest on the top of Castiel's ear. “It's okay,” he whispers, soothing, “just let yourself go.”

So Castiel does. He lets his body melt against the warmth of that stranger who could be any monster from Castiel's books, and when a hip pushes against his own, he lets his fall into the movement. It's really slow at first, languid; they are completely out of rhythm and even Castiel can see it, see how people around them are shaking with the energy of the music while they are slow dancing to swing. He doesn't exactly feel confident, but he isn't impeding the man's movements, he's adjusting to them before they are fully formed. Only he can feel how this isn't enough, it isn't satisfying for someone who can feel his own heartbeat follow the rhythm of the songs, his partner is a tamed beast, but he will only humor Castiel's inadequacy for so long. Soon enough, their movements become faster, more frenetic. Castiel surrenders all control to the man and he has become that woman in the black dress, he is an accessory, except this time there is no one else dancing with them, he isn't sharing; or rather, he isn't being shared.

They had become too close to look at each other, but now the man is straightening his neck and making place for a thin blanket of air between their bodies, and Castiel has no other choice but to cant his head to let the green eyes devour all of him. Castiel's soul is a house that has been locked up for centuries, and someone is now opening the shutters and the windows, letting the sunlight in and pulling the white sheets off all the furniture he'd forgotten about. He's oddly convinced the air doesn't taste the same, and it's like he's discovering the feel of the ground beneath his feet for the first time. He can hardly read anything in the golden stripes that light up the man's eyes, he can only see how each one of them is burning when the light hits them at a different angle. His body can still inform him it is moving, it knows the complete stranger is still playing him, but his mind cannot answer with appropriate orders. It can't formulate any orders at all, appropriate or not, for that matter. He is not in command, he is possessed, body and soul.

“What's your name?”

Castiel's eyes don't fall on the man's lips before their last word, before they caress each other and part again to form an M, and he is concious enough to regret that. In his rush to look at the pink mouth, he's also forgotten to pay attention to the voice, and he's already searching for ways to make him speak again.

“Castiel,” he barely breathes. He wants to be given a name in return, but he doesn't know how to ask for it, he can't speak anymore, he doesn't have access to anything he has ever learnt.

He wouldn't see the way the man's lips curl just enough to cause a small tremor if he wasn't literally as close to him as two humans could get. “That's an odd name,” he tells him. This time, Castiel has heard. The man's voice is an inducement to come closer, its timbre reaches down to Castiel's low abdomen while the chords it plays force the last barriers of his mind to surrender. It curls around his lungs and squeezes the oxygen out of them, it worms its way down Castiel's spine to the very tips of his toes, it vibrates within him like a cello in its lowest tones. “My name is Dean.”

Castiel opens his eyes as the words echo in his head. Rays of warm light are travelling on his exposed skin as he lies in bed, the gray dust in the air dancing around him. There is the blue bird he has come to know singing on the ledge of his open window.

He gets up with his mind blank, more silent than he's ever known his own thoughts to be. He takes a long look at his face in his mirror; his cheeks are pink and they offer contrast with his eyes that he finds wider than usual, but must be imagining things because they stay exactly the same when he blinks several times.

He checks his calendar while he only eats half of what he's cooked. Today is Saturday. He can soon hear engines roaring outside his small wooden house. He looks outside his window, at the dresses, the blue cars and the red bowties, the smiles and the jewellery. He leaves his breakfast unfinished and his chair swaying on its feet.

  


Castiel wears the silky dark blue shirt his brother brought him from the city, black pants, a black waistcoat, of which the back is made of light grey satin, a black bowtie, and the only pair of shining black shoes he owns. He doesn't really care whether he's over or underdressed. He was first planning to go on foot, but he isn't a hundred feet from his house when a vivid blue car stops for him and he is pulled by women's hands inside the vehicle. Castiel sits next to a young girl with a short blond hair and well-defined cheekbones who smiles at him with lips made of cherry. She complimentes the choice of his shirt, it brings out his beautiful eyes, she says.

 

**Author's Note:**

> I will never write a sequel, if however you want to do so yourself, give me a link and I'll add it here so people (including me) can check it out, you've got my blessing. I would write some more because 1920 Destiel AUs are my reason to live, but I'm lazy and I've already got two fics going.


End file.
